"unhurt" poems
Distance brings proportion. From here
the populated tiers
as much as players seem part of the show:
a constructed stage beast, three folds of Dante's rose,
or a Chinese military hat
cunningly chased with bodies.
"Falling from his chariot, a drunk man is unhurt
because his soul is intact. Not knowing his fall,
he is unastonished, he is invulnerable."
So, too, the "pure man"-"pure"
in the sense of undisturbed water.
"It is not necessary to seek out
a wasteland, swamp, or thicket."
The opposing pitcher's pertinent hesitations,
the sky, this meadow, Mantle's thick baked neck,
the old men who in the changing rosters see
a personal mutability,
green slats, wet stone are all to me
as when an emperor commands
a performance with a gesture of his eyes.
"No king on his throne has the joy of the dead,"
the skull told Chuang-tzu.
The thought of death is peppermint to you
when games begin with patriotic song
and a democratic sun beats broadly down.
The Inner Journey seems unjudgeably long
when small boys purchase cups of ice
and, distant as a paradise,
experts, passionate and deft,
hold motionless while Berra flies to left.
4.6k
to every family that has lost someone to the war on drugs, i offer you a piece of my heart. take it and make it yours.
when the other children ask if i miss you, i answer no. how can i miss someone who has not even left? you are still alive, i feel it; i know it to be true. you live in the paper thin walls of our home, a ghost lingering on the dining table.
(i'm sorry there's hardly any food laid out. sometimes mother forgets to buy any or her hands shake too much for her to cook -- i don't know if it's from the cigarettes or the lambanog. brother is always out nowadays, trying to make money. he leaves before the sun is up and comes home long after mother has gone to bed. i think they're like this because they can hardly bear to look at your seat without dying a little more.)
grandmother tells me to talk some sense into mother. "just because he died doesn't mean she can let her children die too. she is just sad. she needs someone to talk to." what she means is: comfort her. but i wonder. what comfort can you offer a dead man walking?
sometimes i stare at the sky from the hole on my ceiling, and i wonder which star is you. is it the bright one that is always at the center of my vision? the one a little ways to the left? on better days, brother joins me and takes my hand in his. i swear it's almost like you're back, laying beside me.
it's hard without you here. we miss you. when i see the other children and their fathers -- whole, unhurt, alive -- i feel a pang of pain. it's like hearing the gunshot all over again.
i don't know if you were still alive then, but i was the one who called for help. i screamed until my lungs gave way to the torrent of pain that filled even the spaces between my bones. i don't know (nor do i wish to) if you were still alive or if you had already had a taste of sunset.
it's a little funny. you had promised me we'd go to the lake that day. just you and i. you had gotten a job the week before and you wanted to celebrate with your favorite daughter. (i didn't have the heart to remind you i was your only daughter.)
and i want you to know i am holding you to that promise. when we meet again. in space. heaven. eternity. in whatever version of the afterlife we end up in. we'll go to the lake.
just you and i.
Dec 31, 2016
Dec 31, 2016 at 7:20 AM UTC
There once was an alien from outer space
Whose craft crashed in its resting place
His spaceship was on red alert
But he managed to escape unhurt
and subsequently disappeared without trace.
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 1:03 AM UTC
Humorless soul burning plunder
Of fraternity and success
By unnamed ,unseen blood and flesh
Escaping through unimaginable pits of hell
Not leaving a folklore,a story to tell.
A new decease spreading through mankind
From a single human body
Frightening name, shrieking mankind
Whenever this disease comes in contact with them.
Appropriately a plague
Running in tempt
Spreading to face
Something like vendetta ,something unsafe.
Entering into new age
Through the plague of dissatisfaction
Morose ,cruel,not leaving a fly unhurt
Being risen as group of beasts...
Dissatisfaction,a word which shouldn't exist
Flows now through the blood stream of every body
Leaving poison to spread
From toe to head
Keeping love in custody.
Why this plague of dissatisfaction?
Why an unturned page?
why this spread of cruelty?
Why not try but fail?
Unanswerable questions,i think these are for me...
I'll just sit and stare at the poem as the
Plague of dissatisfaction spreads till eternity.
Oct 10, 2013
Oct 10, 2013 at 11:39 PM UTC
Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles
In children's circuses could stay their troubles?
There was a time they could cry over books,
But time has set its maggot on their track.
Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe.
What's never known is safest in this life.
Under the skysigns they who have no arms
Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost
Alone's unhurt, so the blind man sees best.
3.2k
I was never good at tests
spending hours sitting in a chair
pretending to take notes, doodling and scribbling
daydreaming of places, places just not there
I was never good at tests
dodging bullies in the classroom, and halls
carrying books in a belt, my locker never worked
good at sports, basket and racquetball
I was never good at tests
lettering in architecture, wood and metal shop
not quite a geek, but definitely a nerd
boozing on school trips, and every resting stop
I was never good at tests
in retrospect I realize, the girls used to flirt
those were the days of my introvert
trying to stay unscathed and unhurt
I was never good, at tests
Jan 6, 2017
Jan 6, 2017 at 3:17 PM UTC
There, lay outskirts. Through them are windmills lining
A vast expanse of amber sky, and there they are refining
A pure blue wind, tinted such within by turning steel fins.
They did, they told you. No one would walk to the end
Of the blue windmills, no one could ever mend
The heart of our world, twirled in their spinning curls.
But, you, I know you. Is what you’ve done enough now?
Has the pain gone away, will your heart unhurt somehow?
It wasn’t you, they knew. And you know it to be true.
I left. This is for you, because I want the knowing
That I’ll see you someday in the place where it’s snowing.
It’s not a lie, allied your love and mine, so this time
I do, do want to see you, walking out in the wind
I’ll wait for you by the blue windmills, made of
paper and pins.
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014 at 10:38 AM UTC
She is preserved at the greenery
fading inside the floating yellows
her mellow as the sun set strikes
face wondering on the future mirror
She longs to encase inside her cocoon
unhurt the pain pierced in her ribcage
the spent morrow of blunt perceptions
wavering the chronic deserted day
She is alone in a world of within
without the touch of the yester clouds
the tremor of her upset is unreliable
watering the chronic ail she donned
She feels the crystal pain on the dial
rails of entrust and forgotten tense
the troubles of the self sacrifice travellers
*trespassing ***** gates of wired shield*
She knows when her well is overfilled
finding a self that can embrace life
the compromised placid meanders
flowing the alive esse of a today
She moans of eons undignified
trying to excavate her sinking soul
the one that made her feel like she
revealing the reality of her unusual peace
She jumps like a seasonal seesaw
illusions parading the absolute truce
a muse of delicate authentic flavours
transversing the idealised time and space
She knows herself best when isolated
when the moon sinks and the night draw
when vagaries explode in the chaotic skies
when the pearl starry sun stares in her iris
Jul 25, 2016
Jul 25, 2016 at 4:22 PM UTC
Falling
sprawled and appalling
on my face,
drooling disgrace, galling
Falling
in love and above, tall in
a flood of enough
smoothening rough, or mauling
Falling
down a dire spiral calling
tired warnings
fired down and bawling
Falling
on deaf ears boring when sure in
death near and above all, or fawning
Falling
in line and recalling
confines and rules in forming
Decisions, once and for all
Falling
The wayside supporting
weight and tired eyes, squalling
*But the feeling of falling is deceiving when believing that the subject moves around the ground
Which is dawning the befallen
When in feeling fallen I feel more than
I am moving but that the world has proven
That I am stuck while it rushes up
And I cannot catch up or take much
Protection from the projected connection
Of the rocky bottom on my rocked cheek
The breath inside me left to hide in a better guest
For life's essential and potentials
Falling to me is not easy humiliation, or needy contemplation,
Only lungs devoid from the impact deployed
And the same dirt, on my tongue and gums, curt
My eyes, unhurt, can never avoid*
Jun 4, 2015
Jun 4, 2015 at 2:21 PM UTC
The Angels surrounds
the heart of the one
whose heart is broken.
No one can feel
or see the pain in your
heart but only you.
It is hidden away from
the mortal eyes.
Only your essence and
feelings can reach out to
the one whose heart is
disturbed and confused.
No one can touch or
understand how you feel,
except through the power
of love that heals and forgives.
The spoken words of love
are understood by the heart
that is so touched by the
spirit of counsel and
of love and forgiveness.
Only it's breath can cause the
heart to flutter to feel the warmth
of the bliss it exudes.
Can anything be as sweet and
lovely than a forgiven heart of
a wounded soul who has regained
freedom from the nightmares of the
tormented life conquered.
A sureness of a soul set free is glorious.
That is the impression of what the heart
desires for a free spirit unhurt by
unfortunate circumstances.
2018,Emeka Mokeme. All Rights Reserved.
Aug 10, 2018
Aug 10, 2018 at 12:31 PM UTC
Voice always waiting, waiting, wanting.
The stars are real but remain unused,
Unused and unhurt.
I saw wind and beauty wrong
(the arms should have been longer)
Wonder understands Miss Change lovingly.
It takes feet to stand.
The moon lies and memory matters.
Come, sit, watch the bad words with me in darkness.
Sound person.
High earth.
Ask the song fingers for something less boring.
We just like love,
And time and life and heart and
Something to be different, new today.
Feel the day
Way away, so far away
That day the thought train lost a good man.
Spirit never dies but neither
does it always return just
because we
need it
to.
Dec 10, 2014
Dec 10, 2014 at 2:46 AM UTC
**When the storm ends will you be here?
When the rainfall ceases.
And the leaves began to get their color.
When the skies are no longer gray.
And the clouds no longer pout.
When the sun shines bright and merry.
Will you be here?
To hold me.
To tell me everything will be fine.
To treat me with the same kindness.
Even when I am just fine.
Will you be here?
When I'm not hurt.
When I'm not in pain.
Just when I need you.
Because I just need you.
Will you be here?
Not in my darkest hour but in the eye of my storm.
There's no crying.
Or any pain.
Just me unhurt.
Will you be here?
When I am no longer a wounded animal.
Or a helpless creature.
For you to love and care.
Struggling to just breath.
Will you be here?
When there is no longer a princess in the tower.
Surrounded by rough terrain.
The need for rugged man in shinning armor will be no more.
The dragon's fiery breath will be cooled.
Will you be here when the storm ends?**
Nov 7, 2012
Nov 7, 2012 at 11:31 AM UTC
Losing you was like jumping off the high dive.
At first I was in free fall.
I felt nothing.
Everything was calm.
Just atoms floating through time and space.
Then...
FLOP
Like hitting the pool stomach first.
The pain radiated out to my entire body.
No limb left unhurt.
Stinging, aching, unable to get over it and
Just climb out of the pool.
Apr 22, 2015
Apr 22, 2015 at 9:05 AM UTC
i'm weak
weaker than i used to be
or at least that's what they tell me-
thin and white,
a pale white, which will fade into pink.
but never red,
not anymore.
but i'm still happier now
sitting in this dark room, alone
the light from the small lamp
crammed on top of two boxes of apples
and below my fathers old, untouched, dress coats
in the right corner of my closet,
creeps past
the silver handled blade on my floor
past my pale, hairy, white-lined leg
past my empty, unmade bed
and dies, quietly, on the wall
behind the TV, which, in humming
disintegrates every word,
every word, which i want to,
need to
communicate to her
in some way
even if it it means tapping them out
on that screen slid under the TV.
it's red light is flashing, facing me- it's charging.
But why?
To reveal more **** disappointment?
To reveal the last thing she sent me?
"stop sending me stuff".
and right above all the,"i love you"s.
Right above all the **** lies,
because, if she loved me,
she'd be here,
the closet door would be closed,
the lamp, off
the knife back in my desk drawer
and my leg would be unhurt,
it isn't
©Brandon Webb
2012
Nov 8, 2012
Nov 8, 2012 at 3:03 PM UTC
Sweet wind that brings me desert dust and ashes
Or salty mist as blood on burning lips
Sweet wind that carries smells of roads and mountains
And rocks, and sands, and rusty wires, and tires,
And bullet-pierced sandbags, mines, and empty tins
And holy thorns that grow through them
And hot, bleak sky high over them
And dry, cracked clay embracing them
Sweet wind that brings me memories of war
Wind softly stroking dusty oleanders
And rushing all along the endless road
Wind –
Now tell me, when the land so lolls in sleepy peace –
Kids playing, women chatting, lovers dreaming,
Men building houses, furnishing, arranging –
All more fragile than cobweb lace
That busy housewives sweep away on sleepless daybreak
Sweet wind, tell me why I
I try to fill my mind with buzz and humdrum
Of knowledge – words, and thoughts, and numbers,
-- to stifle the voice, the shadow haunting me –
The voice that whispers softly, sweetly killing
To wake me up – to find myself again –
To send me far away where is my home:
To prison, madhouse, hospital, dodjo,
Wet dugout, earthquake rubble, secret lab
Where I belong, where all like me are going –
But still in vain,
For happiness, my prison guard and mate
Me torturing,
And happiness, the evil sheikh of nightmares,
His long, thin legs me strangling, hanging down
My shoulders,
His mud-brown hands me stopping ears, and eyes, and mouth –
And me
Who wanders through my days as empty rooms
And endless corridors of giant fallout shelters
Where lonely steps reverberate in hollow hallways
And ruthless light
In which the shadow of my shadow
Me follows – counselor, and silent friend,
Unhurt by splinters of that broken magic mirror
That **** in air; may some benumb my heart
And let me play the game of words and numbers
That spells ETERNITY;
And let the sweet hashish of words and numbers
Make me forget;
Make me forgive, and live, and lie
That I believe the world of war will never come.
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 6:28 AM UTC
At first a few ornaments shook in the apartment
in that modern city block.
Complacent the warning ignored by the people
then a more violent shudder.
Running out fearing the buildings destruction
outside was total ruction!
Not from an earth quake they had first thought
but there had been a crash!
The unrecognisable craft fallen from clear skies
huge of an unknown design.
Fire and flames spread along a devastating track
there was no going back.
More appeared firing weapons into the fleeing crowd
masonry falling crushing many.
Helicopters gunships and fighter planes approached
being of no match to the foe.
On the ground weird creatures herded those unhurt
driving them precise and covert!
In those early days man had nothing ready to fight
to stop this alien massacre.
These battles were coordinated around the globe
an unprovoked desecration.
Secret protocols had been formulated by governments
on the possibilities of such events!
Satellite signals had been disrupted the attack a surprise
but the resistance had been planned.
Now to be implemented the fight back had begun
hidden basis and weapons brought onto line!
Powerful nations telling us aliens didn't really exist
yet were prepared for the time to resist!
The people don't really know what's going on!
The Foureyed Poet.
Mar 20, 2012
Mar 20, 2012 at 11:04 PM UTC
It follows me,
Every step that I go,
Never leaves me throughout the day,
Sometimes disappears at night,
But once I step under the light,
The evil side of me escapes my body
And hides beneath me,
My shadow.
The disappearance doesn't mean its gone,
It only escapes from me ,
Untamed.
In the absence of light
My shadow surrounds me,
Overwhelms me and causes my pupils to become narrow,
When my eyes magnify the darkness
Nothing can escape my sight.
The darkness is mine,
This time I follow my shadow.
When the light comes piercing through my window as the sun rises,
My shadow wakes up behind me as I stand.
My shadow is small,
My shadow goes through everything
I go through in the day.
As I fall apart from the dreadful experiences
Of the human life,
I am forced to become strong.
Yet my shadow is left untouched, unhurt, unaffected.
Yet, maybe that is needed in order to stick with me.
If it knew human emotion perhaps it would escape.
When I was with her,
She had a shadow too.
When I was with her,
My shadow was paired and it extended itself under the sun.
Now I'm not with her,
Perhaps my shadow feels the tearing away
Of what was once a part of it.
My shadow doesn't boil like i do under the sun,
At night,
My shadow forgets.
Shadow,
Can I be like you?
Lets switch places for a day.
Because in humanity,
Even sleep is not an escape from the nightmares.
Shadow
Jan 13, 2018
Jan 13, 2018 at 1:18 AM UTC
A hero is a person who
has simply done as others do
until a certain point in time
when they step over safety's line.
Then they become something more
than a mere human, and have borne
another person's trial and pain
not thinking of their glory, gain.
A hero's the woman who waits and stays
and watches while the others play,
then takes the drinking people home,
wending her way to sleep alone.
A hero's the teen who looks and sees
a child's kite hung in the trees
and climbs farther than he should dare
to show the kid that someone cares.
The mutt who stays by master's side,
Alerting folks with howls and cries.
He may be cold, have to defend,
But he'll stay with his human friend.
The "Boys/Girls in Blue" this word deserve.
They bravely work. Protect and serve.
Dealing with crime and human woes,
They go where others will not go.
A fireman breaks down a door.
There could be backdraft, but does more,
because the baby in the room
will almost surely be consumed.
He's sustained wounds, and badly burnt,
but the little girl survives, unhurt.
The soldier who's sent to block, defend.
His buddy's met a painful end,
but hunkers down, takes back the field.
'Til the end he will not yield.
Jesus left His Father's home,
went to earth to walk alone.
He endured horrid trial and pain,
He took our sin, He took our shame.
The reason why He was so brave?
So that billions would be saved.
There are many more of us
Who do hard work while others fuss.
The single moms and single dads,
Nowadays parents have it bad!
With no fanfare or applause
work long hours on thankless jobs.
They ensure kids do more than eat.
They can be schooled for greater feats.
And if a person takes the time
to bring some light, to let it shine,
to cheer up people down and blue
well, my friend,
that hero's YOU.
SoulSurvivor
Catherine Jarvis
(C) February 21, 2009
Sep 26, 2014
Sep 26, 2014 at 7:07 PM UTC
You answered with a synapse
Startling my resolve with unrest
As I felt the change in the make-up of our ties
To each other. We'd built our nest
With texts and forgotten half-smiles -
Layered them with shadows unkempt
Leaking from our darkest sides.
It was an approximation to love, an attempt
By unwilling donors with unhurt prides,
To win the privilege of touch
Without losing sight of the lines.
Gossip didn't bother us much
We'd focus instead on the sighs,
Beats for our particular choreography.
But you've cut short our supply
With this silence, and now, awkwardly,
We fumble words, waiting for each other's turn.
In synapses like these, I ask myself what are we
When the memory of your skin still burns
And I miss your shadow on me.
Mar 1, 2015
Mar 1, 2015 at 5:38 PM UTC
we are all wandering these streets
families we meet,
so happy to greet
they feel so perfect
so unhurt by it,
they tell us everything
we don't hardly care
giving them those half hearted stares
we're just struggling to breath this air
so hurt,
so unprepared, what do we do now,
join back in the crowd?
i ask myself 'how'
our masks are wearing down.
Where's that perfect family now?
what a scene we're making now-
all our joy is bleeding from our mouths,
we'll make it, somehow
Apr 28, 2014
Apr 28, 2014 at 11:27 PM UTC
Cunning, Cunning,
they need thy aid
who tread the earth
in human frames
from one ordinary sunrise
till one ordinary sunset,
a fleeting moment -
the breadth of a lifetime.
Thy helping hand
to smile, to please,
and sometimes
to shed a tear;
to love and be loved,
to be unmoved, unhurt,
to be indifferent;
to not be different,
to be like and be liked;
to hide and seek,
as well as to be
at two places at once;
to be the same child
to one's parents;
to be the same parent
to one's child;
to be in a family,
to be a friendly neighbor,
to go to work daily and
to change into a thousand
versions of oneself;
to write
but not give oneself away,
also, to write
to give oneself away;
to not be touched
by Art;
to not believe in another;
to not always be right,
to be a great hypocrite;
to live and let die,
that is, to survive;
finally,
to do the things
one does
to prepare for the end.
Mar 9, 2014
Mar 9, 2014 at 5:45 PM UTC
The truth is much harsher when it is out of the blue
but then it isn't really out of the blue, is it?
Lingering, hovering, nagging, gnawing
at the back of my mind,
fingers just of it's reach.
Each time it would come close to the surface
I would glimpse at its purpose,
only to get nervous and kick it back away.
So I may stay oblivious to it just a little longer.
I knew this to be the lull before the storm
And now the horrid truth has pull the storm in to my orbit
Full of lightening, but what is its target?
Great flashes of light burns through the night
leaving heaps of ashes among the trash.
I remain unhurt, undamaged, unburned.
Others haven't faired so well.
Feared the flash and rightly so
Their pain stains the ground in the form of ashes.
Ashes and dust stains everywhere, even in the heaviest of rain
A reminder. Of what's to come. What's to be returned.
And I -
I watch it all.
The Writting on the Wall on the ground.
I might be unburned but such a sight
unhinges me something terrible
Prys me open just enough to cry.
Pouring tears lost in the roaring rain.
But crying all the same.
Because I don't know why it's you.
I don't know why you have to die.
Dodging lightening all your life until now a streak is lodged in you.
Breaks and splinters inside tightening its hold.
Even though you are burning up, I have never seen you look so cold.
I wish it was one of your famous poker faces
Tricking us you are going to fold
but at the last minute revealing a hiden ace.
If ever there was a time to play your ace, it is today.
Don't let this be our last game
But you have no control over it do you?
Have to deal with the cards that has been delt.
I must admit, these cards are ****
No aces to play but that won't stop you
You'll play till the end with the same grace you've always had.
So for now lets keep playing.
We still have time, we've always had time
You are not ashes, yet.
And when that last flash does occur
Then I will say goodbye
And in the morning cry all the more
Mourning you and everything you were.
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 6:42 PM UTC
Silver alert, silver alert
the gold Ford is gone
we hope she's not hurt
Silver alert, silver alert
Grandmas run off
with her new boyfriend Burt
Silver alert, silver alert
Burt's a gold digger
a real piece of dirt
Yes silver alert, yes silver alert
we hope the cops find her
with her monies unhurt
Oh my, silver alert, silver alert
don't spend our inheritance
on Burt, the pervert
Feb 27, 2018
Feb 27, 2018 at 10:10 AM UTC
You left me
Broken
Scarred
And Bleeding
But I forgave
I can’t forget
Not now
Not yet
But when I do leave
I won’t leave you like you left me
I won’t hurt you
I won’t scar you
I won’t break you
I won’t make you bleed
I won’t make you feel pain
Pain hurts people
It breaks them
When you hurt someone
You can feel it burn under your skin
You can hear the ice rush in your blood
You can see the dark shadows in your eyes
You can taste their pain, cracking with every touch you make
So why didn’t you feel it
Burn past my skin
Why didn’t you hear it
The ice cracking my frozen blood
So why didn’t you see it
The shadows leaving me blind
Why didn’t you taste it
My pain cracking me inside to out
I’m breaking from your touch…
I tried to learn how to
Make my skin as hard as steel
To heat my blood with fire
To live in the shadows
To hide my pain inside
and put the pieces back together
But they don’t fit.
They’ll never fit.
They can’t.
I’m In pain
When I hold him
Pain hurts.
Pain may be a 4-letter word to you
But to me
It’s what my life has become.
I don’t feel anymore,
Nothing but you touch.
I don’t hear anymore,
Nothing but your voice.
I don’t see anymore,
Nothing but your face.
I don’t taste anymore,
Nothing but your pain.
I don’t live anymore,
The pain killed me.
I won’t forget
Not yet.
Not until you know what pain I’m in.
Pain breaks people
It scars them
They can never pick up the broken pieces
because they cut themselves
they injure themselves
just trying to put them back together
They don't know they can't fix it
They wonder where it all went wrong.
Please stop giving false hopes
It wasn’t their fault that they,
Bleed more feeling
Damage more sound
Hurt more sight
Wound more taste
**** more life
Like you killed mine
I’ll leave you
Unlike you left me
You are unhurt
Unscarred
Unbroken
and feel no pain
Pain.
A 4-letter word to you
But my life to me
I’ll let go of my pain now
Because,
finally,
I let go of
You.
Jun 22, 2015
Jun 22, 2015 at 1:15 PM UTC
We were lying in the field
Behind my apartment
A mid-day meal
Wooden compartment
Your eyelashes extended
Your forehead and hairline
You intended
To find a fault line
The earth crumbling beneath
And car alarms sounding
Uncultured heath
Fractures abounding
Your dark skin mixing with dirt
Dangling from the rift
Dropping unhurt
Found gold to sift
Leaving with your small treasure
And I in the dust
Aim to measure
And readjust
May 23, 2016
May 23, 2016 at 4:11 PM UTC